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A Word from The "Webmaster"

Hello! My name is Robert Jones, and I am the person charged with maintaining this web site. Let me tell you a little about myself and the business.

I'm 16 years old and attending high school, and have been doing well (all things considered). Our whole family helps out with the business. My mother survives through most of it, and helps when we (my brother and I) are "out of pocket," so to speak. My brother helps my dad label products, take inventory, and handle the main product that you see in your fridge. My brother and I both help dad load up his big trailer full of stuff that he takes to a show. My dad runs everything and does most of the work. But sometimes there are days when we all take a little break and have some fun :). Most of the time we get along but there are times when we don't. My dad, my brother, and I all participate in the product making portion of the job.

A Word from Dick

I suppose that it’s important to spend some time illustrating how and why I got into the Specialty Food Business. Otherwise, you’re going to assume that I am a chef and that I was educated in some of the best restaurants at home & abroad.

Wrong! I’m a graduate Electrical and Structural Engineer, and spent the majority of my time once I left College building and designing Refrigeration Equipment. Yup, I had a real job once.

Well, about 13 years ago, c. 1993, I was the chief scientist for a small, startup company which was attempting to manufacture & market a microprocessor controlled residential heat pump. For those of you not fortunate enough to own a heat pump, it’s a piece of refrigeration equipment meant to provide both heating & cooling for living spaces.

As a hobby, so to speak, I decided to grow a big, and I do mean big (2 + acres), “garden” in which I planted all the perceived ingredients for the pasta sauces & salsas that my wife and I had been concocting on a small scale for several years. It was my intention to “raise the bar” & build a bunch of sauce & see if there could be a market for them.

Remember that I said that I was employed by a startup company, funded by some Dudes with really deep pockets. So deep in fact that probably our family’s entire net worth at the time was no more than a round-off in their personal checking accounts. Needless to say, when I started down the sauce road, I had visions of becoming the next Hunt-Wesson, not just your humble little ol’ sauce guru.

Now, I had been involved with growing gardens & vegetables all my life, and therefore gave little thought as to how to grow & cultivate the prime ingredient in the sauces: The Garlic. You see, my father and mother never planted garlic each year. We just had little perennial clusters that we thinned each year basically because the family need was minimal and fresh garlic was readily available in the supermarket.

My garden was a success except for the garlic which turned out to be a miserable failure. However, being an Engineer, I couldn’t let this drop. So, given that I was a “scientist” and all, I did some research on how to grow garlic. The upshot of the research was that I needed to grow Elephant Garlic, not the “little” stuff.

A Side Bar, if you please

Elephant Garlic isn’t considered “real” garlic by those who think they are in the know about things Garlic. Though it is part of the lily family, there are some things about it that keep aficionados from recognizing it as true Garlic. They think it belongs with Leeks & Shallots. However, it sure saved a lot of time during the sauce building, and, oh duh!, the sauces tasted just fine . . . like they had “Garlic” in them.

Back to the Story Well, because I still had a “real” job, and some pretty time-intensive responsibilities, I put the sauce issue on hold, but maintained a small, but growing interest in the cultivation of Elephant Garlic. In fact, at one point through the help of some friends, I was probably the largest grower of elephant garlic on the East Coast. But that’s another story.

In the Winter of 1997, through lack of funding, not the lack of Science, our little startup company sorta stopped functioning. In fact, it was put on permanent hold. Remember that I was the Chief Scientist, and that the entire technology was either conceived by me or under my direction. Therefore, I was the keeper of the “Family Jewels.”

These smart investors, way back when the company was funded, recognized that if the technology “walked,” there would not be much left of the company but a marketing shell. Therefore, as part of an ownership agreement, I had to sign a rather comprehensive non-compete document. Basically, this meant I couldn’t practice my “art” for three years after leaving the company.

You could say in this case that the company left me, and that certainly would be arguable in court. However, given my then current asset base, and the aforementioned comparison to that of the investor group, I thought it best to get as far away from the refrigeration business as possible. So I decided to become the King of Garlic.

Surprisingly enough, my technical background was excellent training for this endeavor, though I certainly didn’t know it at the time. Granted, I still made some mistakes . . . some big ones in fact . . . But, I’m still in the business thanks to those that I didn’t make.

I hope you enjoy the products that we offer. Don’t forget, you can reach me anytime, and inquire on any subject . . . Dick@dickskitchen.com. Enjoy!